Atari v Commodore

[frenchman]

What was your comparison? Milk Race.

Oh yes, as printed in ZZAP! 64 issue 28:

"blocky cyclists, Legoland backdrops, awful collision detection, badly animated riders, poor joystick control....etc; overall 34 out of 100%"

 

You stick to your low-res C64.

 

Sorry, your logic just totally collapsed there... the Zzap! review was pointing out the blockiness in Milk Race because what it was doing wasn't the norm on the C64, so your comment about the "low-res C64" when the mag you're quoting are lambasting that game specifically for being a lower res than the C64 would usually offer takes a severe kicking; even if it struggled back to it's feet, the A8 version of Milk Race being a lower resolution than the C64 one floors it a second time...

 

Nah my logic is spot on, Rocky Mountains compares a crap C64 title (which were common if you flick through the ZZAP! 64 issues) with an equally crap A8 title. No win situation for C64, now that's logic.

 

 

But feel free to pass on this info to Rocky, he adores those C64 titles.

Edited October 4, 2009 by frenchman

[frenchman]

Also, pretty sure you'd be taken a lot more seriously without all the silly emoticons. I like the comparisons myself, it's just too bad you write like a ten-year old...

 

--

Atari Frog

http://www.atarimania.com

Contrary to most atarians I prefer more hi-res graphics than less low-res on screen. Therefore, I use a lot of emoticons. Love me or hate me.

 

 

What was your comparison? Milk Race.

Oh yes, as printed in ZZAP! 64 issue 28:

"blocky cyclists, Legoland backdrops, awful collision detection, badly animated riders, poor joystick control....etc; overall 34 out of 100%"

 

You stick to your low-res C64.

You still don't get any hints, do you ? but that's okay, I guess we shouldn't expect too much from you in that department LOL

 

 

Hints from a low-res C64er? Why? It would bring the A8 down.

[miker]

Maybe tell something that really impress us.

 

And yes we do dream - angry why not about Commies? :-]

 

Still prefer Atari - sorry, you can't do better then.

Well, C64 users live in the real world. We don't need to dream about great games or demos, because we already have them.

 

So... I see you've got bigger problem.

 

Can't help you then, I'm Atarian (and proud of it as hell)!

[emkay]

Show me just one "great" demo. The only "demo" to talk about is "edge of disgrace" because it fits together from the start to the end.

Every demo on the C64 stops being interesting after the watcher misses some nice lightning FX, clean "realtime" animations without flicker, interlace or else.... the "off" colours also show the low limits of that machine very fast, and depending on the low CPU speed, you see often "reused" graphics parts, resulting in an off the place caleidoscopic effect that also kills the fun of watching .

C64 sometimes has good parts inside the shown demos. Just the presentation is mostly better than in A8 demos.

I love Numen on A8 for its 3d stuff but I don't think its better demo then these:

 

Natural Wonders 2

http://noname.c64.or...lease/?id=72560

 

 

Desert dream

http://noname.c64.or...lease/?id=48039

 

 

Deus Ex Machina

http://noname.c64.or...lease/?id=11585

 

 

Maybe its just me but these are damn good IMHO.

 

 

I know them. For C64 limits they are good, no question...

[TMR]

What was your comparison? Milk Race.

Oh yes, as printed in ZZAP! 64 issue 28:

"blocky cyclists, Legoland backdrops, awful collision detection, badly animated riders, poor joystick control....etc; overall 34 out of 100%"

 

You stick to your low-res C64.

 

Sorry, your logic just totally collapsed there... the Zzap! review was pointing out the blockiness in Milk Race because what it was doing wasn't the norm on the C64, so your comment about the "low-res C64" when the mag you're quoting are lambasting that game specifically for being a lower res than the C64 would usually offer takes a severe kicking; even if it struggled back to it's feet, the A8 version of Milk Race being a lower resolution than the C64 one floors it a second time...

 

Nah my logic is spot on, Rocky Mountains compares a crap C64 title (which were common if you flick through the ZZAP! 64 issues) with an equally crap A8 title. No win situation for C64, now that's logic.

 

Doesn't make any difference if they're crap titles or not (in fact, that evens the comparative playing field up because it negates the stock Atarian argument that only one version is badly programmed if both are), you're building the whole "low-res C64" thing on top of a single game and that doesn't score any points in a C64 to A8 comparison because in the specific case it's the less blocky version of the two and in a more general context it's an exception and the review you quoted essentially pointed that out anyway.

 

But feel free to pass on this info to Rocky, he adores those C64 titles.

 

He hasn't said that he adores those titles, again the logic you're working with has issues. And considering the fact that i consider that information to be fundamentally incorrect, why on Earth would i pass it on?

[Rockford]

What was your comparison? Milk Race.

Oh yes, as printed in ZZAP! 64 issue 28:

"blocky cyclists, Legoland backdrops, awful collision detection, badly animated riders, poor joystick control....etc; overall 34 out of 100%"

 

You stick to your low-res C64.

 

Sorry, your logic just totally collapsed there... the Zzap! review was pointing out the blockiness in Milk Race because what it was doing wasn't the norm on the C64, so your comment about the "low-res C64" when the mag you're quoting are lambasting that game specifically for being a lower res than the C64 would usually offer takes a severe kicking; even if it struggled back to it's feet, the A8 version of Milk Race being a lower resolution than the C64 one floors it a second time...

 

Nah my logic is spot on, Rocky Mountains compares a crap C64 title (which were common if you flick through the ZZAP! 64 issues) with an equally crap A8 title. No win situation for C64, now that's logic.

 

 

But feel free to pass on this info to Rocky, he adores those C64 titles.

I've compared over 30 games so far, many of them are great titles (Barbarian, Green beret, Draconus, Zybex, Starquake to name few). Even your fellow atarians admitted that. So, your logic is spot on indeed.... You know what ? Perhaps you shouldn't try to think too much, because logical thinking doesn't seem to be your forte.

[frenchman]

What was your comparison? Milk Race.

Oh yes, as printed in ZZAP! 64 issue 28:

"blocky cyclists, Legoland backdrops, awful collision detection, badly animated riders, poor joystick control....etc; overall 34 out of 100%"

 

You stick to your low-res C64.

 

Sorry, your logic just totally collapsed there... the Zzap! review was pointing out the blockiness in Milk Race because what it was doing wasn't the norm on the C64, so your comment about the "low-res C64" when the mag you're quoting are lambasting that game specifically for being a lower res than the C64 would usually offer takes a severe kicking; even if it struggled back to it's feet, the A8 version of Milk Race being a lower resolution than the C64 one floors it a second time...

 

Nah my logic is spot on, Rocky Mountains compares a crap C64 title (which were common if you flick through the ZZAP! 64 issues) with an equally crap A8 title. No win situation for C64, now that's logic.

 

 

But feel free to pass on this info to Rocky, he adores those C64 titles.

So, your logic is spot on indeed.... .

 

Well, thank you very much, but I knew this already.

[Rockford]

Maybe tell something that really impress us.

 

And yes we do dream - angry why not about Commies? :-]

 

Still prefer Atari - sorry, you can't do better then.

Well, C64 users live in the real world. We don't need to dream about great games or demos, because we already have them.

 

So... I see you've got bigger problem.

 

Can't help you then, I'm Atarian (and proud of it as hell)!

The first time we talked, you acted like prima donna celebrities who were too important to be bothered, so you made a great progress today in being less sensitive.

[popmilo]

I propose this picture too:

 

I guess you took random, nice picture, right ?

It has nothing to do with gradual changing color of sky and water ?

Uh... how convenient for DLIs

 

That would definitely look better on A8

[emkay]

A trick you see everytime on the C64.... interlace, when CPU powers got exceeded...

 

 

 

Just look at 2:10 ...

 

The whole thing slows down. The "big" rotating element is only drawn every 2nd line.

This is done so clever, it is not funny. With this effect, you don't even compensate the slow CPU, on a tv set it looks also like some transparency effect. Adding the "interlace" temporarily into a demo to handle more visuals... what would become possible on the XL then?

 

 

 

 

[TMR]

The whole thing slows down.

 

It goes from processing one vector object to two so of course it'll slow down and the A8 wouldn't be able to make that transition without a noticeable difference in speed either.

 

Adding the "interlace" temporarily into a demo to handle more visuals... what would become possible on the XL then?

 

It's already been used on the A8 in various forms, essentially APAC is a variation on the same technique to generate the colours, Altar uses a variation on that and Samobojcy does it for a game environment with the mixed modes for the back and foreground graphics. But compare the CPU load for generating those displays to what the C64 is doing for that part of Second Reality and there's going to be a huge shortfall in available time at the A8 end to run two vector objects...

[frenchman]

Here's another one of those comparisons Rocky did:

 

Kick Off (Anco) C64 review in ZZAP! 64 issue 56

 

"the C64 just doesn't get started, appalling, graphics have ropey animation, sprite flicker (what? on a C64?), slow moving sprites, weak sound effects and no tunes...etc" 37% out of 100

 

Another crap game comparison from the 10 year old master.

Edited October 4, 2009 by frenchman

[atarian63]

Show me just one "great" demo. The only "demo" to talk about is "edge of disgrace" because it fits together from the start to the end.

Every demo on the C64 stops being interesting after the watcher misses some nice lightning FX, clean "realtime" animations without flicker, interlace or else.... the "off" colours also show the low limits of that machine very fast, and depending on the low CPU speed, you see often "reused" graphics parts, resulting in an off the place caleidoscopic effect that also kills the fun of watching .

C64 sometimes has good parts inside the shown demos. Just the presentation is mostly better than in A8 demos.

I love Numen on A8 for its 3d stuff but I don't think its better demo then these:

 

Natural Wonders 2

http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=72560

 

 

Desert dream

http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=48039

 

 

Deus Ex Machina

http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=11585

 

 

Maybe its just me but these are damn good IMHO.

nice , however I think Numen is better.

[atarian63]

Umm c64 looks terrible, typical of the time period. Amazing it ever caught on..

 

Assuming you're still talking about Uridium at this point, it's so "terrible" in fact that there are no less than four A8 games trying to copy it pretty much directly in some form (Astromeda doesn't try to duplicate the gameplay exactly because it's unidirectional, but there are Vanadium, Thunderfox, Mirax Force and Oxygene), one taking the graphics directly from Andy Braybrook's original and Chris Murray has openly stated that the C64 game was his inspiration (i'd always assumed he'd nicked some of the deck graphics anyway, but they're not identical...)

 

AtariMania even classifies all four of those games as "Shoot'em Up! - Uridium" so it's extremely difficult to argue that Uridium didn't have an impact on gamers generally back in the day, so whilst you personally may feel it looks terrible with hindsight (and there's that good ol' subjectivity argument bubbling under again, don't tell atariksi!) at the time there were several people trying to clone it on other platforms such as Psycastria on the BBC Micro and at least four A8 developers and indeed Atari themselves (and indeed the multiple publishers who put out Mirax Force) disagreed with you pretty strongly.

No,

sorry for the screwed up post, I was talking about the 1983 c64 golf game pic I posted.Nothing more.

[potatohead]

Well, it'd be more an ease thing for myself going for 80x96 to be honest; i've been trying to get some game graphics working in 80x192 and, despite what atariksi thinks, drawing anything that actually works is seriously fecking difficult at 4:1 pixel ratios! Thing is, i've got most of the damned back engine working with 4:1 ratio and know that if i switch to 2:1 it doesn't even need to do half the work i spent so long unrolling and optimising... and part of me is rather pleased with the work done so far and is trying to talk the rest of me into shutting the feck up and getting on with drawing something to use it!

 

i'm going to have to write some custom tools for this job anyway because there really isn't anything out there to do what i need doing... so i have to settle on the resolution before i write those tools.

 

Can you use the free time somewhere else? If so, seems to me preserving the optimising with the 2:1 ratio might pay off.

 

On the current engine no, with some recoding possibly but it'd need juggling (and me to remember how to do a few things i've not coded in a while) to find out; certainly i can throw some of that extra time at cosmetic details (a nice 2:1 ratio sixteen luma status panel perhaps, possibly something a bit busier even). That said, i'd almost lay money that this thing is going to die on it's arse on an NTSC machine even after i've unrolled the sprite rendering so perhaps i should think about going to 2:1 just to leave a bit of free time for that...

 

Seriously. I am shocked to learn how much of a difference the PAL blanking period makes. Good call.

[atarian63]

What was your comparison? Milk Race.

Oh yes, as printed in ZZAP! 64 issue 28:

"blocky cyclists, Legoland backdrops, awful collision detection, badly animated riders, poor joystick control....etc; overall 34 out of 100%"

 

You stick to your low-res C64.

 

Sorry, your logic just totally collapsed there... the Zzap! review was pointing out the blockiness in Milk Race because what it was doing wasn't the norm on the C64, so your comment about the "low-res C64" when the mag you're quoting are lambasting that game specifically for being a lower res than the C64 would usually offer takes a severe kicking; even if it struggled back to it's feet, the A8 version of Milk Race being a lower resolution than the C64 one floors it a second time...

 

Nah my logic is spot on, Rocky Mountains compares a crap C64 title (which were common if you flick through the ZZAP! 64 issues) with an equally crap A8 title. No win situation for C64, now that's logic.

 

Doesn't make any difference if they're crap titles or not (in fact, that evens the comparative playing field up because it negates the stock Atarian argument that only one version is badly programmed if both are), you're building the whole "low-res C64" thing on top of a single game and that doesn't score any points in a C64 to A8 comparison because in the specific case it's the less blocky version of the two and in a more general context it's an exception and the review you quoted essentially pointed that out anyway.

 

But feel free to pass on this info to Rocky, he adores those C64 titles.

 

He hasn't said that he adores those titles, again the logic you're working with has issues. And considering the fact that i consider that information to be fundamentally incorrect, why on Earth would i pass it on?

Actaully the extreme bias and blind devotion to C64 does prove the point. They guy just simply does not learn.

Also it is a fact that starting in late 84 to mid 85 going forward( there are a few notable exceptions) less effort was spent on atari A8 quality in games, it was a downhill rides except for a few notable exceptions. To not acknowlege this is missing the obvious just to score points.This happened strictly for marketing reasons plain and simple. People were cheap,bought an inferior(at the time) product dur to price. This led to larger installed base and a reason to deveope and overcome it's weaknesses. Atari just stopped in the world of game dev. so actually there is no equal comparison time period. THis whole thing here will just go round and round.

[atarian63]

I propose this picture too:

 

I guess you took random, nice picture, right ?

It has nothing to do with gradual changing color of sky and water ?

Uh... how convenient for DLIs

 

That would definitely look better on A8

Oh No! Something looking better on A8. Heresy!

[emkay]

The whole thing slows down.

 

It goes from processing one vector object to two so of course it'll slow down and the A8 wouldn't be able to make that transition without a noticeable difference in speed either.

 

 

THAT was not the point. To compensate the slowdown they added those "interlace" FX....

 

 

Adding the "interlace" temporarily into a demo to handle more visuals... what would become possible on the XL then?

 

It's already been used on the A8 in various forms, essentially APAC is a variation on the same technique to generate the colours, Altar uses a variation on that and Samobojcy does it for a game environment with the mixed modes for the back and foreground graphics. But compare the CPU load for generating those displays to what the C64 is doing for that part of Second Reality and there's going to be a huge shortfall in available time at the A8 end to run two vector objects...

 

 

Holy crap.....

Ofcourse Interlace was done on the A8. I'm talking about the presentation which makes the interlace looking "good" just like an interesting effect. Your "examples" use straight Interlace , thus they are not suitable...

[TMR]

Seriously. I am shocked to learn how much of a difference the PAL blanking period makes. Good call.

 

That's a constant with all 8-bits to be honest, there are a few C64 games that were considered unfixable for NTSC and it took extensive surgery to get Phobia working for example (the sort behind the multiplexing was ripped out and totally replaced, without that it really wasn't possible to get the thing up on an American machine).

 

In my case, CPU grind wouldn't be anywhere near as much of an issue if my "sprite engine" (for want of a better name) didn't hammer the hardware right the way down the game's play area to get a few more colours going, i've already had to unroll one of the management loops to get the thing moving at 50FPS on PAL and plan to do similar to the sprite clear and render loops - after that i've got to put the background rendering in and that's going to steal back a significant chunk of time i reckon.

[atariksi]

Looks like you had lots of spare time today and shamelessly picking on non-programmer with your biased incorrect views of Atari hardware capabilities. If you are so much into higher resolution, you were better off with a PC CGA machine that does 640*200 and 320*200 in linear fashion. You also would have gotten a bigger color RAM in 80*25 text extendible to graphics modes and 16 color palette. As a bonus, you would have gotten linear graphics. One graphics mode does not make a machine. And your graphics mode isn't exactly 16 colors for any pixel not even at 160*200. You are wrong here as already demonstrated many times-- Atari can do more than 2 colors in Graphics 8. Leaving aside, DLI-based changes, here's a simple BASIC example that even you can understand:

 

Obviously your sense of humour box needs a total reboot again..

If you can't see the irony in what I posted then god help you..

Anyway, I'm done with you now once and for all.. You're a tedious man with a penchant for twisting the words of others to meet your agenda.. Auf wiedersehen..

 

Once again just another false accusation without even addressing the point or admitting that Atari can do more colors at 320*200 than you thought. You previously avoided the logical argument as well claiming you have to see it. But it seems you are the one hitting the fanboy reset button and going back to default that Atari has only 2 colors in 320*200 and 4/5 colors at 160*200.

[TMR]

The whole thing slows down.

 

It goes from processing one vector object to two so of course it'll slow down and the A8 wouldn't be able to make that transition without a noticeable difference in speed either.

 

THAT was not the point. To compensate the slowdown they added those "interlace" FX....

 

No, the "interlace" is there as an attempt to ape the transparency in the original demo. And please don't go around guessing the motives of programmers.

 

Holy crap.....

Ofcourse Interlace was done on the A8. I'm talking about the presentation which makes the interlace looking "good" just like an interesting effect. Your "examples" use straight Interlace , thus they are not suitable...

 

They give an idea of the overheads required and that's more than enough to demonstrate why there'd be issues in actually doing it rather than just talking about/guessing what could be achieved. Feel free to code something up to prove me wrong...

[emkay]

Seriously. I am shocked to learn how much of a difference the PAL blanking period makes. Good call.

 

That's a constant with all 8-bits to be honest, there are a few C64 games that were considered unfixable for NTSC and it took extensive surgery to get Phobia working for example (the sort behind the multiplexing was ripped out and totally replaced, without that it really wasn't possible to get the thing up on an American machine).

 

The exception with the A8 here is that the cycle stealing also gets less. 50 times per second instead of 60 times per second. This makes the PAL ATARI noticeable faster. But thankfully to NTSC games compatibility, the PAL A8 sleeps well for a good timespan every second.... even in Rescue on Fractalus.

[atariksi]

...Secondly, just having twice the horizontal resolution does not make images better without regard for color content. Take a look at this example (original 24-bit 320*480, 256-color at half resolution, and 16-color at same resolution and then GTIA picture in gray-scale w/8-pixel sprite overlay) and I have worked with thousands of such images and they all show up better in 256 colors at half resolution than 16-colors:

Ehhhrrmmm...

 

I can see vertical stripes 2 or 4 pixels wide and I guess they come from combination of GTIA mode and sprite overlay.

 

But I also see hires pixels in there ?

 

Did you use some PC tool for resizing image or something else because it doesn't look like its possible on A8 ?

 

And how do you use that sprite overlay ?

Gprior 0 effect ? 40 pixels wide ?

Did you use some custom converter ?

And is GTIA-part mix of two modes ?

 

It's just 8 pixels per scanline that are resolution enhanced so far (haven't quite optimized the algorithm). There are no hires pixels-- just result of JPGing image (in all cases not just that one). I would have posted BMPs but they don't seem to upload. There's NO GPRIOR mode 0 involved so it's a simple algorithm. It's just 80*200*16 w/some resolution enhancement.

[atariksi]

This will be an unpopular statement with at least half the people participating in this most epic of debates, but the recent posts show - to me - that the C64's hi-res bitmap images wipe the floor with many of the A8 offerings. I'm Atari through and through, but I wish the Atari had that level of control of colour at that resolution. It's pretty futile offering anything in the GTIA modes as a response to those C64 pics. Atari with VBXE2 - yes, naturally that's going to blow the C64 away. But we should expect that with such a fundamental hardware enhancement.

 

First he has yet to make up his mind why he's posting spatially dithered images and claiming they are blended into single colors on the real machine. Secondly, just having twice the horizontal resolution does not make images better without regard for color content. Take a look at this example (original 24-bit 320*480, 256-color at half resolution, and 16-color at same resolution and then GTIA picture in gray-scale w/8-pixel sprite overlay) and I have worked with thousands of such images and they all show up better in 256 colors at half resolution than 16-colors:

 

That last picture shows 253 colours - and seems to have detail at 320 pixel resolution, That's pretty amazing for an A8 image? How do you do it?

 

Popmilo did a better job of looking at the picture than you did. I posted several similar pictures early in the thread-- they all get a bunch of shades added due to JPG not being able to deal with edges very well. But original BMP is 16 shades.

[TMR]

He hasn't said that he adores those titles, again the logic you're working with has issues. And considering the fact that i consider that information to be fundamentally incorrect, why on Earth would i pass it on?

Actaully the extreme bias and blind devotion to C64 does prove the point.

 

No more than it does with a lot of Atarians in this thread... i don't think he's even shown blind devotion personally, he'd need to be "bigging up" the C64 versions of games where the A8 is superior and he's not done that.

 

Also it is a fact that starting in late 84 to mid 85 going forward( there are a few notable exceptions) less effort was spent on atari A8 quality in games, it was a downhill rides except for a few notable exceptions. To not acknowlege this is missing the obvious just to score points.

 

That doesn't really make a difference in the long run, does it? Most of the titles are, as i've said and indeed has been pointed out, not top tier C64 ones as regarding the coding so a weak game on one platform is still besting a weak game on another and the "bad programming" argument loses it's meaning in those cases because it's a constant.

 

THis whole thing here will just go round and round.

 

Probably...